Nepal's Yeti Airlines has confirmed that 18 passengers and crew were killed this morning in a crash on landing of one of its de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters.
Senior manager Vinay Shakya confirms from Kathmandu that the crash occurred at Lukla airport in eastern Nepal. He says the Twin Otter was operating a domestic flight from the capital Kathmandu and 19 people were on board.
Shakya says the aircraft's captain was the sole survivor of the crash, which killed the co-pilot and a flight attendant as well as all 16 passengers.
He says 12 of the passengers were German, two were Australians and two were Nepalese.
Shakya says the aircraft carried a registration of 9N-AFE. According to Flight's ACAS database it had a serial number of 720 and was built in 1980. Yeti is listed as the owner.
ACAS says the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-27-powered aircraft, a Series 300 variant, had been in service with Yeti since 1998.
Its airport, at more than 9,000ft (2,740m) above sea level and surrounded by mountains, is a challenging one for operations as it is on an incline and has a cliff at the lower end. It is only able to accommodate helicopters and short takeoff and landing fixed-wing aircraft.
This YouTube video is from a Yeti Airlines Twin Otter successfully landing at Lukla Airport and helps demonstrate the challenges this airport presents to a flight crew:
Images of Lukla Airpot, Nepal from Flickr ...